


Shift

by mrs_d



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Sam Can Talk to Birds, Sam Wilson: Bird Prince, Samtember, animal injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-17 07:43:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8135896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrs_d/pseuds/mrs_d
Summary: Steve’s out for a run early one morning when he first encounters the falcon.





	

Steve’s out for a run early one morning when he first encounters the falcon. It’s in a marshy area by the river, looking too big and entirely out of place among the tall reeds. Steve’s seen a few birds here since he started running this trail a week ago for a change of scenery. He’s seen a heron, watched it fold its long, narrow body in half and straighten up with a small squirming fish in its beak. He’s seen entire families of ducks and geese, the babies looking so tiny that he has a hard time believing they’ll grow up to be the same size as their parents.

But he’s never seen a bird of prey like this, never up close. He slows to a stop, worrying vaguely about the family of ducklings, hoping that this guy hasn’t just had a few of them for breakfast. The bird turns its head, staring Steve down with one dark, beady eye as he approaches with his phone out, hoping to get a picture of this rare sighting.

“Hey, guy,” Steve says softly, trying not to startle it. “Or girl. Sorry, I don’t know enough about your species to know your gender.”

The falcon gives a shrill _kee-yaw_ and takes off. The noise and movement startle Steve into dropping his phone, and when he’s got it in his hand again, the falcon is already flying. He tries to snap a photo, but his phone shut off when he dropped it, so all he can do is watch as the bird gets smaller and smaller against the washed-out palette of the pre-dawn sky, and disappears behind a tree in front of the low-hanging moon.

“Damn,” Steve mutters, disappointed that he couldn’t get that shot. He sighs, tucks his phone away and continues his jog, wondering if he’ll ever see something like that again.

* * *

A few weeks go by with no sign of the falcon. Steve sees more herons, a few crows and smaller birds that, according to the bird book he borrowed from the library, are flycatchers. He checks in with the local families of ducks and geese, too — they don’t seem to be short any little ones, and this puts his mind at ease somehow.

Steve rounds the corner of the trail one morning, and there’s a man ahead of him, jogging steadily past the marsh. Steve is surprised; normally, there’s no one here, which is in part why Steve likes this path so much. Steve follows him, behind and to the left, keeping the same pace for a few yards until the man turns his head and sends him a curious glance and then a smile. Steve smiles back, and they carry on.

After a week of this, Steve chances a “Good morning,” and he’s thrilled when he gets one back. It’s a simple exchange, something that a normal person wouldn’t even blink at it, but Steve doesn’t get many of those, and he hasn’t been a normal person since 1942. He can’t go to the supermarket without feeling exposed, and God help him if he wears blue in public; every kid in a ten-block radius immediately recognizes him, and next thing he knows he’s being mobbed by tiny fans and their star-struck parents.

That — and the job at SHIELD, and Peggy — was enough to make him leave New York, to start fresh in DC, to seek out the empty running trails each morning, to pointedly ignore Natasha when she says he needs to get out more.

So he’s a little disappointed one morning when he doesn’t see the man he’s secretly begun thinking of as his running buddy. He spends the entire time lost in thought about how stupid and pathetic he is to think that maybe he mattered to someone without the giant A on his forehead.

He’s so caught up in berating himself that he barely notices the dark shape high in the tree branches in front of the setting moon. He glances up only when the falcon screeches and takes off, and then he gives himself more shit about not watching his surroundings, about missing another chance to take a picture of that beautiful and rare bird.

* * *

Two days later, Steve’s running hard, chasing away a nightmare about fire and tanks and dead soldiers piling up around his feet, and he blows past his running buddy with just a quick “On your left” to warn him.

“Uh huh,” the man grunts back, and Steve feels guilty for being rude, but it’s too late to do anything about it now; he’s already put a dozen yards between them.

The next morning’s the same, another dream that Steve can’t stop seeing each time he closes his eyes, and he repeats his warning when he passes the man by the marsh.

“Uh huh, on my left, got it,” the man replies, and Steve wants to laugh. He's giddy all of the sudden, to have elicited a snarky reaction from a complete stranger.

So he does it again the next day, just for fun.

“Don’t say it,” the man says over his shoulder, as Steve approaches, gradually picking up speed. “Don’t you say it—”

“On your left,” Steve pants.

“Aw, come on,” he hears behind him, and this time Steve does laugh, free and light in the cool morning air.

He slows to a stop after two miles, and hangs out with the ducks, waiting for the man to catch up. This is where he first saw the falcon, and, though he looks around hopefully, there isn’t any sign of it today. His running buddy, however, rounds the corner, and his eyes widen at the sight of Steve hanging out by the water.

“Hey man,” he says, stopping and breathing heavily. “You all right?”

“I’m good,” Steve replies. “You’re the one who looks like he needs a medic.”

“Wow,” says the man with the hint of a gorgeous gap-toothed smile. “Who would’ve thought Captain America could be such a little shit.”

Steve’s blood goes cold. His recently stretched muscles tighten up again, and he turns away. “Good to meet you,” he says, flat, over his shoulder.

“Hey,” the man says again. “Wait, man.”

Steve hears his footsteps following, so he takes off, running full-speed, all the way past his apartment, to SHIELD HQ, to the training room in the basement that Fury set aside just for him.

“You idiot,” he chants to himself, again and again, punctuating each repetition with the slap of his feet against the pavement. When he gets his hands taped up in the training room, he says it with punches, and he only stops when his arms are finally starting to ache.

That’s when he looks over to see Natasha standing in the doorway. He has no idea how long she’s been there, but from the look on her face, she’s in interrogation mode.

“No,” he says, unwrapping his hands.

“No what?” she asks.

“No, I’m not gonna tell you what’s wrong,” Steve clarifies.

Natasha looks him up and down and sighs. “Fine. How do you feel about kicking some terrorist ass instead?”

Steve gives her a grim smile. “Let’s do it.”

* * *

It’s another month before he goes back to the river trail, and he’s rewarded by the sight of the falcon, as huge and beautiful as ever, amongst the reeds. Steve stops abruptly when he notices it, and the falcon turns at the sound, but it doesn’t fly away. In fact, it comes even closer, its head held high.

Steve fumbles his phone out of his pocket, hoping that maybe today he’ll get the picture he’s wanted for months now. He centers the shot, grateful for the soft morning light that catches the gleam of this magnificent bird’s feathers, and takes the photo.

His screen freezes on the image, and then goes black.

“What the—?” Steve mumbles. He holds the power button, hits the phone gently against his palm, but it won’t turn back on.

Meanwhile, the falcon is closer than ever. Steve sets his phone down and kneels on the gravel path. He could reach out and touch the bird, if he weren’t afraid of losing a few fingers in the process.  

“Hey, buddy,” Steve murmurs instead. “Are you lost?”

Its sharp eyes are locked on Steve’s, and it lets out a small, pathetic sound.

“Yeah, me too,” Steve says.

He extends a hand cautiously, and the bird shuffles nearer, but stops, now less than a foot away. It looks up suddenly, into the brightening sky, and takes off, its strong wings knocking Steve back, its talons kicking up small stones and dust.

Steve cranes his neck, watching until it’s out of sight. “Bye,” he says miserably.

* * *

He spends the rest of that day trying to fix his phone. He starts by plugging it in, thinking that the most obvious problem would be that its battery died. That explanation doesn’t make sense, since the phone was fully charged before he went for a run, but Steve’s heard that these things don’t do well with cold, so maybe the cool temperatures on the river trail drained it.

But the green charging symbol doesn’t appear, so Steve unplugs it again. He paces his small living room, wondering if there’s someone he can call for advice about this problem, before he remembers that this problem means that he can’t call anyone.

So he goes online. According to Google, his phone might be water-damaged, and, even though he’s pretty sure its case is waterproof, and there’s no sign of a little red dot under the battery, he takes it apart anyway and puts it in a bowl of rice for a few hours while he does some laundry and cleans his kitchen.

It still won’t turn on, though, and he’s starting to get worried about missing important calls from SHIELD, so he dumps the rice and the phone into a plastic container with a lid and heads to HQ.

He’s relieved to find Brenda, the head of IT, in her office when he gets there. Steve feels like he’s gotten to know her quite well over the last few months, since she had to walk him through computer basics more times than he can count. She smiles when she sees him, and Steve wonders if they’re friends.

But then she greets him with, “Captain,” and Steve remembers that it’s all business here, that, with the possible exception of Natasha, none of his work friends are real friends.

“Did you bring me lunch?” Brenda asks.

“What?” Steve looks down, bewildered until he realizes that that’s what it looks like he’s carrying. “Oh. No, uh, unless you want to eat raw rice and a smartphone battery.”

Brenda’s eyebrows shoot up. “Come again?”

Steve chuckles. He sets the container down and opens it, showing her. “I don’t know what I did to it.”

“Well, you put it in rice, for one thing,” she mutters with a wry smile. She fishes the phone parts out and examines them. “Doesn’t look like water damage, Cap.”

“I know,” Steve agrees. “But I was down by the river, and it shut down, so water seemed likely. At least, that’s what Google said.”

Brenda nods, humming thoughtfully. “Leave it with me for now,” she says. She digs a phone out of her desk drawer and turns it on, hands it over. “Here. Take a loaner for the time being.”

“Thanks, Brenda,” says Steve. The phone is larger than his, heavier, but he’s not going to complain.

“Any time, Cap,” she replies with a smile. “And good job on the Googling — I told you you’d get used to it.”

Steve just shakes his head, laughing softly. “I guess stranger things have happened.”

* * *

Speaking of strange things, Steve gets attacked the following morning.

A shot rings out, shattering the stillness of the mist-covered river, and Steve ducks down, making himself small as he runs and rolls. He’s behind a tree in about three seconds flat, scanning the path and wishing to hell he had his shield. Until he can find the sniper, he’s nothing but target practice.

He sees where the bullet hit the ground, traces the trajectory to what could be a shadow in the long reeds. He grabs his phone to call for help, but it’s bigger than he’s used to. He drops it twice and there’s another gunshot, and he’s got to move again because that one was closer. He scrambles back into the trees, as the gravel crunches in front of him.

Steve stands up to look, and time slows down.

He sees his assailant emerge from the marsh, less then ten feet away. He’s all in black body armor, a mask over the bottom of his face, raising a pistol with a shining metal arm. Steve feels his eyes go wide, he knows he has nowhere to go, nothing to block the end from coming closer, and—

Something enormous and dark swoops out of the sky with an ear-piercing shriek. The assassin flinches at the sound, makes a noise of pain behind the mask when the falcon dives at the back of his neck, the only part of his body that’s exposed. Red blood sprays as the falcon beats its wings, flies up and around for another pass, but the assassin raises the gun, fires, then turns and runs, leaving a trail of blood that Steve will follow. But not right now, because he’s gone straight to the bird, which is flapping one mangled wing uselessly against the gravel, screeching in a voice that’s getting weaker and weaker.

“It’s okay,” he tells it. “It’s gonna be okay, I promise.”

He’s got his phone in one hand and dials Nat’s numbers with cold fingers, puts it on speaker and sets it down. With his other hand, he rips off a part of his shirt and, as he’s telling Natasha his location and ordering her to bring everyone and hurry, he’s trying to blot at the bird’s wound. The fabric comes away tacky with blood, and the bird’s cries are getting hoarser, more faded, almost human.

“No, dammit,” he exclaims. “Come on, don’t do this, I need you, you _can’t_ —”

He takes off his torn shirt, tries to do more, but the falcon’s movements are slowing, its eyes unblinking. The bird shudders under his shirt and goes still.

“No,” Steve whispers, voice shattered beyond his recognition.

His head droops, and his tears splash down onto the torn and rumpled feathers of the bird, a creature innocent of everything except involvement with him. Another casualty of this war that just keeps going on around him, that just keeps taking. Every loss feels more raw than the last, and now he hangs his head, crouched over this bird, and weeps, mourning all of it.

Slowly, he realizes he is being enveloped in warmth, and a light so bright it turns the backs of his closed eyelids red. The sun, he thinks, with another wave of sadness. He’s been here long enough that the sun has fully risen. The bad guy is likely miles away by now. He should move. His team will be here soon. They can’t see him like this, weeping over a bird because it helped him keep his loneliness at bay some mornings of the last few months, and now he won’t even have that. They can’t see him like this, because Captain America doesn’t cry. Captain America isn’t lonely, or sad, or—

“Um, Captain?” says a voice.

Not Natasha. A man. Not Rumlow. Probably one of his team. Steve braces himself, getting ready to rise, to face the men and give orders, but he’s selfish, he needs another minute, just one more, before he can—

“Steve?” says the voice, and Steve opens his stinging eyes.

There is a man — a naked man, his running buddy — on the ground where the bird was a moment ago. Steve’s still pressing the fabric of his shirt down on a bullet wound, but it’s smaller now, not much more than a graze, really, and the bleeding’s nearly stopped.

“Uh,” Steve says. “Hi.”

“Hi,” says the man. He licks his lips. “Sam Wilson.”

“Steve Rogers,” Steve says automatically.

“Yeah, I kind of put that together,” the man named Sam replies, with just a touch of the snark that Steve had heard from him on that day he lapped him on the trail. It feels like a lifetime ago now.

“Help me up?” Sam asks, and Steve realizes that he’s all but straddling the guy. The guy who apparently used to be a bird but now isn’t. The guy who’s very naked without his feathers.

“Yeah,” Steve says, jumping to his feet and pulling Sam up with his good arm.

“Thanks,” says Sam. “My, uh, clothes are pretty far away, sorry,” he adds, when Steve’s eyes hop down and back up, almost involuntarily. “I’m normally able to get to them before the sun comes up fully.”

“What are you?” Steve can’t help asking.

Sam’s mouth twitches in an almost-smile. “Fifty-eighth pararescue,” he replies. He shrugs. “And a shapeshifter.”

“Oh,” says Steve, like this is a completely normal conversation to be having beside the river on a Tuesday morning. “Well, thanks.”

Sam shakes his head. “No. Thank you,” he says seriously. “I’m stronger than most humans, and I heal quick, so if I’m hurt in my other form, I usually just change back. But on the full moon, I’m stuck, can’t shift until the sun’s up. So, thanks. You saved my life today.”

“You saved me first,” Steve replies. “That guy with the gun, he...”

“He’s been tracking you for a while now,” Sam explains, his sharp eyes following the songbirds that have settled in the trees around them, while the heron stalks over and families of ducks and geese climb out of the water to congregate at Sam’s feet. “The other birds have seen him here a lot lately, since you and I— well, since I pissed you off a few weeks ago. Sorry, by the way.”

Steve blinks. “That’s... not important anymore.”

“And your phone,” Sam adds, looking down sheepishly. “That was my fault, too. My magic, it.... You’re never getting that thing back.”

“Really, it’s not a big deal,” Steve almost laughs.

He’s not convinced that he hasn’t fallen into a storybook, as a small bird settles on Sam’s finger and lets out a long and complicated series of chirps. Sam inclines his head towards the bird, nods.

“Any idea who he is?” he asks, and it takes Steve a second to realize that Sam is talking to him, not the bird.

“No,” Steve says, shaking his head. “But if he tried once, he’ll try again.”

Sam lifts his hand, letting the little bird take off and watching it fly away. “You going after him?”

“Probably.” Steve glances away from the bird, catches the determined look in Sam’s eyes. “You don’t have to come with me.”

“I know,” Sam says. He smiles. “When do we start?”


End file.
